Wednesday 26 February 2014 13.28 EST
First published on Wednesday 26 February 2014 13.28 EST

It felt more like April than February here on Wednesday, as preparations continued for the 2014 National Hunt Festival on a bright, almost warm afternoon. In 13 days' time the field will set off for the Supreme Novice Hurdle and, while the weather forecast remains unsettled, the chance that the meeting will start on hock-deep ground appears to be diminishing by the day.

If there is a cloud on the horizon, it is the one which may, according to John Kettley, Cheltenham's private forecaster, deposit as much as an inch of rain on the track between now and the end of next week. The freezing temperatures which marked the start of last year's meeting, however, when racing was delayed and the Cross Country Chase postponed for two days, are unlikely to be a problem this time around.

"We've had our fair share of rainfall here," Simon Claisse, Cheltenham's clerk of the course, said, "but interestingly when you compare September to now, this year and last year, the rainfall has been about the same over that period. This year, though, it's all come in the last six or seven weeks.

"It's looking in great order, particularly all the ground that we save from year to year to use only at the Festival, which we haven't set foot on since this time last year. If people are concerned about the damage done on the track on our [two] days in January, rest assured that there is no issue.

"If I was giving an assessment for racing today I'd probably call it soft, good-to-soft in places. Up until this morning there were some pretty strong signals for a drier period of weather [but] the latest update from John Kettley says we're now likely to get up to an inch between now and the Friday of next week."

One trainer who will be particularly pleased if the ground continues to dry out is Harry Fry, whose Rock On Ruby, the 2012 Champion Hurdle winner, is among the favourites for the Arkle Trophy on the opening day.

"We're pleased with him and pleased to see the sunshine as well," Fry said. "He's been doing lots of schooling at home, he's where we want him and he seems to come alive at Cheltenham each year. So if he does the same again this year, we'll be very happy. He's a nine-year-old with experience of the Festival but it's a question of how he adapts to the bigger fences."

Fry has the best strike-rate of any trainer in either Britain or Ireland this season and will also saddle Highland Retreat in the OLBG Mares' Hurdle, Vukovar in the JLT Novice Chase and possibly Activial in the Triumph Hurdle in search of his first Festival winner.

The list of initial entries for the 27 races at the Festival is now complete after the release on Wednesday of the possible runners in the Mares' Hurdle, Champion Bumper and Foxhunter Chase, while the weights for the meeting's 11 handicap races are now public too.

Two trainers who were notably positive about their chances of a handicap winner at Wednesday's press conference were Martin Keighley, who sends Any Currency to the Cross Country Chase, and Charlie Longsdon, whose Pendra is prominent in betting for the Rewards4Racing Novice Handicap Chase.

"He went off favourite for the Coral Cup last year but it was definitely a year too soon for him," Longsdon said. "But he's won two of his three chases and I've protected his mark as long as possible. The step up to two-and-a-half will be a big thing for him, he's from a staying family and this is the obvious race for him."

Keighley feels that Any Currency is his "best chance" of a winner at the meeting. "He's got some cracking form around the course, he's taken to it really well," the trainer said. "He was six lengths behind Balthazar King at level weight staying on [in November] and he would get 18lb from him now, so he would have to have a great chance."